COLUMBUS, Ohio – For too long, too many of you have felt the same thing. You've wanted to turn to cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer for daily coverage of Ohio State sports, but one thing has stopped you.

Me.

I vote weird in the AP poll. I make bad jokes. You don't know how to pronounce my last name. My predictions are often terrible. Every year I write the same story about the Buckeyes throwing to the tight end more. And I start too many sentences with “and.”

You're not alone. And now, neither am I.

It's a new day for Ohio State sports coverage in Northeast Ohio, both in how we do it and who will be doing it. Well, it's not this day, but the day will be here soon, when cleveland.com offers three full-time Ohio State writers instead of one.

I'm not leaving. But eight years after I flew in from Wilmington, Delaware, on a Saturday morning to cover my first Ohio State event that night, the second game of the 2005 season, against Texas – Vince Young beat the Buckeyes – two more writers will join me by week two of the 2013 season.

Zack needs a new Twitter avatar.Zack Meisel

One is Zack Meisel, who comes to cleveland.com from MLB.com, where he has been working clubhouses and digging out stories about big league baseball, while talking Indians and developing a writing style he'll now use to spin yarns about Ohio State football. He also knows the Buckeyes as a 2011 OSU graduate, where he wrote for The Lantern, the student newspaper. His story on Ray Small in the midst of Ohio State's NCAA troubles served as one of the best pieces of journalism in that time.

He's young, handsome and talented (I'm only one of those three), and cleveland.com is happy to welcome him aboard.

Our other new addition is Ari Wasserman, a young veteran of Ohio State coverage through his time at BuckeyeGrove.com and, for the last two years, at BuckeyeSports.com and Buckeye Sports Bulletin. Ari will focus on Ohio State recruiting, where he carries plenty of knowledge and a desire to bring the stories of future Buckeyes to our readers with in-depth reporting and writing. As a result, we'll attack OSU recruiting like we never have before at cleveland.com, focusing on it year-round and trying to go beyond just the latest kid to put Ohio State in his top 10.

Another frequent guest on the Cleveland media scene, Ari will also help on football and be all over basketball coverage, something he's been doing at BSB as well. He'll be busy, but Ari is nuts, enthusiastic and talented (I'm also one for three), and he'll bring something cleveland.com readers have never experienced before. Don't underestimate the Wasserman factor.

So does Ari.Ari Wasserman

I'll write as much as I always have. We're adding here. There's no subtraction. But as you may have noticed, there have been some changes. All three of us are employees of the Northeast Ohio Media Group, which means we'll take a digital-first focus to our coverage. But you're reading this on the Internet, so you're cool with that. We'll also be in The Plain Dealer, bringing the weekly, pregame and postgame coverage we always have.

Online, we'll get news up immediately – if Urban Meyer has a news conference, the highlights of what he said will be up minutes after he's done. Video will be right behind it. And we'll break as much of our own news as we can.

We'll provide more videos of OSU coaches and athletes, and then hop on camera ourselves for me to deliver bad predictions and Zack and Ari to provide info about the Buckeyes.

We'll write quick, short, interesting, analytical posts. We'll write off-beat posts. We'll cover everything we can get access to on football and men's basketball. And then we'll go out on our own and find more, writing in-depth stories you'll only find here.

Obviously, there are a lot of places to find Ohio State sports coverage. Many of them are very good, interesting and informative.

If you've been a loyal reader of cleveland.com, let me ask you to stick around and enjoy all that will come your way. And then tell your friends to check us out if they haven't before, with the promise that it's not just that French guy anymore.

If you haven't been a regular visitor to Cleveland.com for Ohio State sports, give us a shot. Check in maybe once a day at the start, and see what you find. Then maybe you'll want to check in twice a day. Then before work, at lunch, before you leave work, and before you go to bed. There will be a lot to look through. Some of it you might find elsewhere, but this will be our take. And some of it you won't, because we'll provide original reporting and writing.

And (there I go again), it won't all sound like this. Because you and I aren't alone anymore.

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